


Waiting to Die

by ImAGiraffacorn



Series: Phandom Phic Phight [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Phandom Phic Phight, character half death, inverse trio au, plant core au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImAGiraffacorn/pseuds/ImAGiraffacorn
Summary: Ever since she acidentally turned on the Fenton Portal while inside, Sam has been half-dead. Although confused and terrified at first, she has learned to control her powers, and now is the ghostly protector of Amity Park, with help from her technogeek friend Danny and goth friend Tucker. Two years of fighting ghosts has made their high school careersmore interesting than any of them expected. When Sam starts dying, their lives take a whole new turn none of them could have expected. Is there any way to save Sam, or will she take the whole town down with her?





	1. Six Times Not Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sailor_Toni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailor_Toni/gifts).



> Based on the prompt "Reverse Trio AU, Sam is slowly being killed by her plant/nature core. But Undergrowth seems unwilling to teach her how to master it. Will she manage to convince him otherwise or will not only her life end but all of Amity Park!?" by Sailor_Toni.  
> I'll try to add chapters once a week for now (either Saturdays or Sundays)

The first time Sam thought she was going to die, and consequently her earliest distinct memory, was when she was four years old. Grandpa Manson had died after a stroke related to a heart problem. Although her own mom and dad hadn’t told her anything, declaring she was too young to understand what was going on, Grandma Manson had explained, in as much scientific detail as Sam asked for, that Grandpa Manson had coronary heart disease, which had clogged up his arteries. She explained about his chest pains and struggles with breathing and how he’d had it for years. A week later, Sam used four-year-old logic to assume she was going to die in the middle of the mall when she suddenly couldn’t breathe and her chest started aching. After much dramatic sobbing, angry whispered arguments between her parents and her grandma, and a doctor's visit, it was determined that Sam had asthma, not a terminal heart disease. 

The second time Sam thought she was going to die was near the beginning of her freshman year. Aside from her first asthma attack, she’d had vague moments of maybe coming close to injury, but it wasn’t until then that she had actually, truly, deep down thought she was going to die. She and Danny and Tucker had been looking at the portal in Danny’s basement when she had dared them to go into it. It wasn’t on, it didn’t even work, but the idea of a door to another realm gave the dare enough weight. Being teenage boys, they had taken her up on it as long as she did too. The picture of them had come out pretty well, matching white hazmat suits Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had made in the hope that Danny and his friends would get involved in ghost hunting before they grew much more. When it was her turn, she’d made it a full three steps into the gaping hole before she managed to trip on a who-knew-what, stumble into the wall, and hit the little green button labelled “on.” In the half-second before the machine actually responded, Sam thought she was going to die. She didn’t think anything once the electricity actually began to shoot through her body, stopping and restarting her heart, fusing her cells with the pure ectoplasm; she couldn’t. She could hear a scream, probably hers but also maybe the boys’, but she couldn’t think. She could only wait to die.

The third time Sam thought she was going to die was less than a week later. She wasn’t sure how she had survived in the portal, but all three of them were too scared to tell the Fentons that they had been messing around in the lab. As such, when she first fell through the sidewalk on the way to school, she had panicked and thought she was dying again. It took another week of carefully asked questions phrased so as to not give away anything to determine that Sam had, in fact, died in the portal, and was now a ghost. When Danny relayed this information to her, she, like any logical teenager presented with the news that they have been dead for almost a month, ran the hell away. Tucker finally found her that night hiding under the footbridge in the park, tossing rocks into the small stream. After a tense conversation among the trio, they reached three conclusions: First, it didn’t matter that Sam was a ghost, she was still their friend. Second, if Sam could figure out how she had fallen through the sidewalk, and maybe try all those other thing Danny’s parents had told him ghosts could do, their freshman year was going to be a lot more fun than they expected. Third and most important, no one else could ever know.

The fourth time Sam thought she was going to die was a lot less stressful than the last two, oddly enough. She’d finally gotten the school board to try a new menu, focusing on organic and sustainable options bought from local farms. She had expected some sort of recognition or award. She had not expected an evil dead-not-dead-maybe-dead lunchlady to attack the school and try to kill her and her friends. Buried under a pile of meat, she had decided she wanted to die all the way and not come back, because  _ dear God did it smell bad. _ In a moment of pessimism, she thought she actually would die all the way. Without warning, she was no longer buried in the meat, but was instead flying through the roof of the school. After a little more trial and error, Sam began to actually steer, before flying back down into the school and fighting an old lady over lunch.

The fifth time Sam thought she was going to die was when she got trapped in an alternate dimension, stuck in the 1950s or 1960s in black and white like the old films she sometimes would watch with Grandma Manson in the basement theatre. Her body was stuck in her dimension with some dead nerd walking around in it, and nobody seemed to notice. After sitting stuck in a locker for almost an hour, she whispered to no one in particular, “I’m going to grow old and die here in this world and nobody will know,” before she started to cry quietly. It didn’t take her as long as she expected to make it back to her body and beat the ghost responsible. It took her longer than she would have liked to acknowledge she wasn’t actually fully dead, but was a “halfa,” whatever that meant. Danny said it meant that when she was in her ghost form, she was dead, but when she was in her human form, she was alive, because it’s impossible to be both alive and dead at the same time. Tucker said it meant that she was a reanimated corpse possessed by her own spirit. Sam chose to ignore both of them. She had spent two months thinking she was dead, and had no intention of doing so again any time soon.

The sixth time Sam thought she was going to die was not when she got stuck in detention for three hours with Dash hitting on her the entire time. It was, surprisingly,  _ not _ when Amity Park was sucked into another dimension and she had to fight the king of all ghosts himself for the fate of humanity. It was when she looked into her own laughing eyes, friends and family seconds from death themselves, and she knew she was going to lose. Her mind worked faster than it ever had, faster even than when the portal had turned on, and she decided that when Mom and Dad and Danny and Tucker and Jazz and the Fentons and Mr. Lancer where gone, she would try to find a way to join them. She was already half-dead, it couldn’t be worse to go all the way. It was better than becoming that  _ thing _ laughing at her suffering from within the thermos.

The seventh time Sam thought she was going to die was slower than the previous six. She hadn’t even realized what was happening until Tucker posed a theoretical question in chemistry class and Danny made a bad joke. Clockwork hadn’t said anything when she asked him, and Undergrowth had brushed off her concerns about her health, saying she probably was coming down with some human disease or another. Sam hadn’t had so much as a runny nose since she had half-died two years and five months ago, but she didn’t want to push her luck. Undergrowth was distant on the best of days and mean on the worst. It was just her luck to have the only other ghost in the world like her be not at all interested in anything related to her. She learned as much as she could from the other plant ghost, but he was only teaching her as a favor to Clockwork and they both knew it. So when Tucker asked a clarifying question about ectoplasmic radiation and its effects on humans (an oddly specific topic, but something that had been added to the Amity Park high school curriculum the previous year), and Danny whispered to her that based on his parents’ cooking,  _ he  _ should be dead one, Sam had the sinking feeling that she was going to die.

Slowly.


	2. Already Half Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is late! Easter weekend and a bad cold make life hectic. As it is, I'm almost done with chapter 3, so that should be up on schedule (mayber earlier). On the other hand, IB exams start next week, and those are going to take too much time and mental energy for pretty much anything else. I'll see how it goes...  
> Sorry for the lack of much action/drama/angst. I swear the next chapter has a fight scene and a few bad puns and more plot progression!

Sam met Danny and Tucker by their lockers after class.

“I have a problem.”

“You always have a problem, Sam,” Tucker laughed out. “You’re a like, half dead, y’know.”

“Yeah, I know I’m dead. I’m talking about a whole different problem right now.” She sighed, and started unlocking her locker. “You know that thing, that I went to Clockwork about, and he said it wasn’t a problem, and then Undergrowth said it was probably just some human sickness? I think it’s definitely a problem, and I think it might be killing me.”

Tucker chuckled a little while Danny looked Sam up and down, trying to figure out if she was joking. Despite his distinct lack of people skills (He was much better with his technology), it only took him a moment to decide that Sam was not joking.

“Tucker, stop laughing,” he muttered as he elbowed the other boy. “She’s being serious.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I am,” Sam said. She turned to her locker, and started opening it. “I wasn’t really paying attention in class-”

“Makes sense,” Danny interrupted. The Trio knew more about all things ghostly than anyone else in the town. Valerie knew more about hunting them, Wes knew more about tracking them, Jazz knew more about their psychology, the Fentons claimed to know more about their evil, diabolical ways, but no one had had more interaction with the ghosts than Sam and her friends. She even had some friends and allies in the Ghost Zone, which no one else could claim.

“But then Tucker, you asked that question about ectoplasmic radiation and then Danny, you made the joke about how you should be the dead one because of your parents’ cooking, and I’ve been so tired and short of breath and unstable lately. And that’s when I realized: I’m dying. My core is killing my human half. Ghosts and humans don’t mix well, it’s why overshadowing people is so tiring. My ghost half is killing my human half, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it!” Sam slammed her hand against the locker next to hers, denting and burning the door with an accidental ectoblast. Two underclassmen standing nearby squeaked and ran away.

“Okay first, don’t scare the poor freshmen,” Tucker said. “We don’t want anyone to call Danny’s parents because they think you’re overshadowed. Second, I’m not sure you’re dying, I think you might be overthinking this a little. Third, if you are dying, we’ll fix you. You’re our best friend Sam, so we’ll do everything we can to help.”

“Yeah, I uh,” Sam stuttered. “Yeah, yeah. It’s probably nothing.”

“Alright. You guys can come over to my place after school, we can go run some tests, and we will figure out what’s up with you, Sam.”

* * *

 

“So, it’s worse than I expected, and we need to get help immediately.” Danny looked up from his parents computer setup tucked away in the lab to where Sam was hooked up to a bunch of wires and cords measuring various vital signs.

“Uh, define immediately,” Tucker spoke before Sam could.

“Not _immediately_ immediately, but relatively soon. Within the next few days, though sooner is better. And not human help. Ghost help.”

“Why?” Sam hopped off the lab table to get a view of the computer screen.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Let’s go with good news.”

“Well, your power levels are significantly up again. On the traditional scale, you’re closing in on a 13, on the Guys in White scale you just passed a 19, and on our scale, you’re twelve percent ahead of Undergrowth. Also, you’ve grown another half-inch.” Danny rattled off the numbers. “That means you’ve increased in power by 32 percent in the last month.”

“Okay then, what’s the bad news?” Tucker asked. Sam was still mulling over her sudden growth spurt. She didn’t feel more powerful.

“Lots of shit is going wrong in your body right now. Like, pretty much everything is just wrong. First, your resting heart rate is up to 128 beats per minute while your oxygen levels are down to 87%. Both are off even for you. Second, your blood sugar is down, again, which I would blame on your diet if we didn’t have the last three years of data that say otherwise.”

“Don’t diss the veggies, Danny.”

“I will continue to diss the veggies till the day I die Sam, but that’s not important right now. You’re bodily functions in general just seem to be slowing down. Your metabolism is less effective, your lungs are less effective, everything is failing. The worst one, though, is this” Danny pointed to a chart in the top right corner with a line that had been going up, suddenly plateaued, and was now pointing down. “That’s your core stability. It plateaued nine months ago after you managed to get your plant powers under control. The last time we checked on it, right when you started getting sick, it was the exact same as before. Now, it’s down by 17 percent.”

“That’s not good,” Sam muttered. Danny turned back to the computers and pulled up a few more charts and graphs, before responding.

“No, it’s really not. The more progressively powerful you become, the more stable your core should be. That’s what happens with the other ghosts, and it was what was happening with you. It should be a rather similar ratio, no matter your power level. I mean, core stability is entirely dependent on maintaining homeostasis in your ghost form, and the more powerful you are, the more you can maintain your form outside of the Ghost Zone with less effort. The fact that your powers are increasing while your stability is going down might actually help explain why you feel weaker. Your ghost half is needing to use more of your human energy to keep up your stability, but your metabolism is slowing down, so you’re just constantly short on energy. That might also be what’s up with your heart and your breathing.”

“So, why is my metabolism slowing down?” Sam asked. Danny stopped typing.

“Y’know, I hadn’t actually thought about that one.”

“And why is my core less stable?”

“I don’t know about that one-”

“Didn’t your parents just get that new X-ray machine?” Tucker interjected. He was absentmindedly drawing in his sketchbook, but had stopped to add his thoughts to the conversation.

“Uh huh. It’s in the corner.” Danny nodded to a cluttered area next to the portal. “Why?”

“Maybe we should get an X-ray of Sam. See if we can tell what’s causing problems.”

“That would actually work. And, it’s meant to be able to take X-rays of ghosts. Well, not technically x-rays cause it’s using different wavelengths, I think gamma rays, to photograph ectoplasm, but the idea still stands. You’re a genius, Tucker.”

“Thank you.” Tucker nodded, pleased he had helped, before going back to his sketchbook.

“Alright Sam. How does an X-ray or five sound?”

“Ugh. Do I have to wear one of those weird shirt things?”

“To make sure I get clear images, yes.” Danny was now in the corner, getting the imaging machine set up. “There’s a box of them on the shelf there.”

“I see them.” Sam grabbed the light blue blouse out of the box, turned herself invisible to change out of her sweatshirt and t-shirt, put on the shirt, tied it behind her back, and then brought herself back into the visible spectrum. “Alright, I’m ready.”

“Great. Just stand here,” Danny pointed to the ground in front of the odd looking machine. “Now, grab this thing up here, and when I tell you, breathe in and hold your breath. Tucker, stand back here, no, behind that thing. Yes, that thing.” Danny joined Tucker behind the barrier and reached for the button. “Alright Sam, breathe in and,” He pushed and held the button. “One, two, three, you’re good.” Danny popped out from behind the wall. “Next one, turn sideways. I need a profile view. You still need to keep your arms up, grab the thing above you, yeah just like that. Get ready to hold your breath again. You good?” Sam nodded. Danny disappeared back around the barrier. “Breathe in.” Sam complied. Danny pressed the button. “One, two, three, and you’re good. Last one, turn so I can get your back. Just like that, now give the target a hug. Good. Hold your breath, and,” Danny pressed the button. “One, two, and there you go.”

“Did your parents teach you this?” Tucker whispered into Danny’s ear.

“No, remember when I had that really bad cough last year? I got an X-ray of my lungs cause they wanted to triple check that it wasn’t bronchitis or lung cancer or anything like that. It wasn’t, but now I know how to get a decent chest X-ray. I mean, Mom taught me and Jazz how to actually work our machine, so…” he tailed off. “Alright, now I need to get some pictures of your ghost half, Sam!” Danny shouted.

“Well then, guess I’ll die.”

“You need a better catch phrase, Sam,” Tucker muttered. “And that’s coming from me, so you know it’s bad.”

His words were lost to the swooshing noise and bright light of Sam’s transformation. As two rings split at her waist and traveled up her body, the X-ray blouse was replaced by a deep purple hazmat suit with white accents. Her eyes started to glow a brighter purple than normal, a glow that still gave Tucker goosebumps even after all these years. Green energy crackled around her head as her hair went from black to white in an instant.

“She really does, Tuck,” Danny whispered to his friend. “Alright Sam, same thing as before. Face the machine, hands up, there you go. And, stop breathing.” Danny and Sam ran through the imaging process again, getting all three angles of her core.

“And now what?” Sam set herself down on the floor as the two rings split her body again.

“Now, I talk to Jazz. She comes home for break tomorrow, and she can take a look at everything.”

“So I just wait?”

“You could go check in with Undergrowth again. Aren’t you supposed to meet him for another training session soon?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Then yeah, just wait.”

“We could have a go at Doom? Get past a few levels?” Tucker suggested.

“It doesn’t involved any moving, right?” Sam asked.

“Nope.”

“I got dibs on the green chair.” Sam floated up through the ceiling.

“You two go set that up. I’m gonna make some copies of your X-rays, Sam, and then wipe everything. If my parents think I’m using this just for fun with my friends, I’ll be grounded till I die.” Danny had pulled out two USB sticks.

“See you up there.” Tucker called from the stairs.

“Yeah…” Danny called back. He quickly pulled up the images he’d just taken, and sighed. If he was wrong, then oh well. That would be for the best, actually. If he was right, well, he didn’t want to scare his friends. He needed Jazz to come back and take a look at everything. She would know for sure. He only had a vague idea. Jazz would know. She had to know. She had to say he was wrong.


	3. Maybe Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been years since Sam was sick. Years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part for the Phic Phight, but I'm planning on continuing this until I feel it's complete. This is coming out early because I need to get last minute points. Team Human all the way!!!
> 
> Also, if anyone is wondering, here's the basic Vlad backstory:  
> Vlad, Maddie, Jack, and Pamela Manson were all best friends in college, until Maddie and Jack almost killed Vlad with the proto-portal. Pamela blamed them and so cut them off, leading to her present animosity for the Fenton’s and disapproval of Sam and Danny being friends. Vlad cut everyone off because he was ashamed and confused by his ghost half, and then when he re-entered society, he blamed Jack and Maddie for his halfa status and blamed Pamela for not trying to help (she did reach out repeatedly, he just didn’t want any contact and so isolated himself). He’s also very jealous of Jeremy Manson for now being married to Pamela, and so is after him instead of Jack. That’s why he went for the mayorship: to oppose his “rival” politically and ruin Jeremy’s chances. Jeremy’s still salty about that and Pamela knows, but Vlad is so powerful that they both put up with him to further their social status and agendas. He doesn’t care about Sam (maybe doesn’t realize, I’m not sure yet), but he still gives Valerie her equipment because he wants to humiliate the Fenton’s by providing an actually competent ghost hunter and he wants to make sure he still has people to rule over as mayor.

Sam didn’t go to school the next day. She had woken up with a massive headache, and when her mother checked, a perfectly normal temperature of 97° (for Sam that was absurdly high, but Pamela didn’t know that). As a mature and responsible high school junior who was definitely totally worried about getting good enough grades to get into a good college, she spent all day texting Danny and Tucker. She tried using Discord, but after twenty messages with no responses, Sam remembered that first, the school wifi had recently gone on another purge and now blocked any sight deemed “games” or “personal” or “messaging,” and second, Danny had English Literature and Tucker had Statistics and neither teacher was particularly forgiving when it came to phones. After watching half of a movie and knitting a hat, she tried again, this time via text.

_ SM: Am I missing anything good? _

_ TF: No _

_ DF: Yes _

_ TF: Definitely not _

_ DF: Wes has decided that Tucker’s a ghost _

_ SM: But… _

_ SM: He is. Is that news? _

_ TF: Ha ha _

_ SM: I’m here all week, folks _

_ DF: Lancer gave me your homework. We’re starting presentations next week, and we all need to make an outline for next class _

_ SM: I thought only six people are presenting? _

_ DF: Yeah, but we don’t know which six, and I think Lancer’s gonna pick based on the outlines _

Sam groaned. She had not enjoyed reading  The Great Gatsby, and did not want to have to think about the book any more, much less give a ten minute presentation.

_ SM: Well fuck _

_ TF: Lol _

_ TF: That’s what you get for taking Lit honors _

_ DF: Moderately jealous _

_ SM: You did this to yourself, Fenton _

He had. Where her parents had made her take the hardest courses, his parents often didn’t even realize he was at school, much less think about his course load.

_ TF: Sooooo……… how’re you doing? _

_ SM: My head hurts and I have a fever _

_ DF: How high? _

_ SM: 97 F _

_ DF: That’s not good _

_ SM: I know _

_ DF: Aren’t you normally like a 93????? _

_ SM: Yeah _

_ TF: When do you start melting? _

_ DF: Dude!!! _

_ SM: Right under 100 _

_ DF: You don’t ask somebody when they start melting!!!!! _

_ DF: But Sam, if you get up to 98, let me know and take an ice bath _

_ DF: I don’t want to have to explain to your parents why you’re missing and there’s a puddle of ectoplasm in your room _

_ SM: That’s fair _

_ TF: Gtg. Tetslaff is yelling at me for not changing out _

_ SM: Good luck! Don’t die! _

_ DF: He should be fine…. Right? _

_ SM: Nope _

Suddenly, Sam straightened up. Her hair started to float up around her head and the air smelled a lot cleaner. She sighed, and climbed out of bed.

_ SM: Ghost. I’ll text you when i’m done _

_ DF: Valerie just “went to the bathroom” _

_ SM: Got it _

_ DF: Be safe! You’re still sick _

Sam pulled her hair back into a quick ponytail, stuffed a pillow under her sheets and turned the lights off to keep her mother and father from noticing anything, and shuffled over to the window.

“Well then, guess I’ll die.” As her voice trailed off, the two rings split around her waist, and she transformed. Immediately, she staggered and fell against the wall. “Oh, no no no. Not good. Come on, Sam. Just one ghost. You got this, you got this.” She quickly turned her arm intangible and reached through her wall, grabbing the Fenton Thermos and Fenton Wrist Ray she kept there. Danny had been both building and stealing his parents weapons since the Trio first started fighting ghosts, leading to the rather sizeable hidden collection they now maintained. Aside from the three other guns and extra thermos in her walls, Sam had stuffed an arsenal into the school walls, her locker, Danny and Tucker’s locker, her car, an old oak tree in the park, the library bathroom, and the Nasty Burger.

“Alright, let’s do this.” She attached the Wrist Ray to her left hand and the Thermos to her belt as she phased through the wall. It only took her a minute of meandering up Main Street to find a trail of small craters and broken bricks, and only a few more seconds to find Skulker.

“Ah, Ghost Child! You are here, which means I can-”

“Cutting you short there, buddy. I’m sick. I need to be home sleeping. I don’t have time to deal with your whole ‘Kill the Whelp! Take the Whelp’s pelt and hang it on my wall! Argh! bullshit. Can we just call it a draw and you head back to the Ghost Zone?”

“Never! I shall be victorious in this hunt-”

“Dude, seriously. You never win. Like, never. Not once. I’m giving you one chance to go home. The Red Huntress is gonna be here two minutes ago, and she’s not as nice as I am. Can you please just go away?”

“You are weakened. That means I shall-”

Skulker was cut off and thrown spinning backwards in the air as a missile hit him square in the chest. Sam groaned and dodged to the side as Valerie shot by her. She popped up, and almost went crashing to the ground just as fast, her vision fuzzy and darkening. She watched as Valerie went zipping around, peppering Skulker with rockets and plasma blasts and the occasional sideswipe with her hoverboard. If she hadn’t been on the verge of falling, Sam would have taken a moment to appreciate Valerie’s skill. Sam had never seen her equal. Back when they had dated for a month in freshman year, back before either of them knew what they were doing as ghost and ghost hunter, Danny and Tucker were convinced Sam was better. Having seen Valerie in action (and having been on the receiving end of that action more times than she would have cared for and thankfully not recently) Sam knew that, if it weren’t for her plant powers and preference for negotiation over confrontation, Valerie would have long surpassed her. As it was, most ghosts just needed a few kind words, directions to a natural portal, or a weekly shipment of boxes.

“Take that, ghost!” Valerie’s shout jolted Sam back to the present, right in time to fall into the road. She sat up as Skulker crashed a few feet away.

“I shall have your skin, huntress!” Skulker roared, clawing out of the new crater.

“I already told you, Skulker, go away!” Sam planted her hands on the ground, and let her powers loose. In seconds, vines and roots began to spring from the ground, breaking through the asphalt and wrapping themselves around Skulker’s suit. 

“No! I will not be defeated by a tree!”

“It’s poison ivy right now, thank you very much, and yes, you will.” Sam pulled at the vines with her mind, and they brought the metal suit crashing into the ground. Skulker’s head popped off and rolled away, his little feet kicking frantically at nothing.

“And in you go,” Valerie laughed as she pulled out her own thermos and sucked in the head, as well as the rest of the armor. “That wasn’t too bad, eh?”

Sam smiled weakly. “Not too bad.” Valerie nodded back, her mask hiding any emotions. The two girls had come to a tentative truce at the end of sophomore year, and had been getting more comfortable with each other ever since. Sam had even gotten a burner phone so Valerie could call her at any time. She hadn’t yet, but it was the thought that counted. 

“Hey, you good?”

“Mostly. Just a little under the weather.”

“Aren’t you dead?” Sam turned abruptly to glare at Valerie “Ack, wait, that came out wrong. Sorry. I just, well, I didn’t think you could get sick.”

“Oh,” Sam’s face relaxed. “Yeah, neither did I. But, here I am.”

“You should go rest.”

“I’m planning on it.”

“Like, right now. Go back to the Ghost Zone. I can take care of things here, at least for a few days. Besides, if I need any help, you have a phone number for a reason.”

Sam sighed. “Okay. Don’t die, Huntress.” She lifted off the ground a little.

“You too, Wraith.” Sam chuckled at the mention of her ghost half’s name as she flew shakily away. Valerie sped off in the other direction with the small hope that maybe she would make it back in time for the end of class.

“Now, back home I go. Slowly, very slowly,” Sam said to nobody. “Very, very slowly. Don’t want to collapse, don’t want to fall.” She faltered above the buildings. “I’m gonna set myself down  _ right _ there, because falling hurts a lot. That is more power than I’ve used in a while. That was more power than I meant to use.” Sam set herself down in the middle of the road, and glanced back at where the fight had just gone down. Vines were everywhere. A few were still growing, twisting up to the sky. The entire road was blocked, along with half of the sidewalk.

“That is  _ way _ more power than I thought.” Sam turned away from the destruction and pulled out her burner phone. She wasn’t sure how, but once she clipped it to her belt, the phone was always there when she transformed.

“Where is it… there it is.” She speed dialed the fire department. “Yes, hello?”

“Amity Park Fire Department Non-Emergency line. How can I help?” The operator on the other side of the phone sounded too cheery.

“Hi, yeah, it’s the Wraith.”

“Oh, hi! How are you? It’s been so long!”

“I’m pretty good, Sharon, you?”

“It’s good, it’s good. Nothing’s burned down recently.” Sharon, the operator, laughed.

“That’s good. So, I made a bit of a mess…”

“Just now?”

“Uh huh. Skulker showed up on Main Street.”

“Is everyone okay? Do I need to get an ambulance? A firetruck? The police? Did you burn something down?” Sharon’s voice rose an octave as lots of scrambling and thudding was heard through the phone.

“Nothing’s burned, Sharon, and nobody’s hurt. No police or ambulances necessary. Just a lot of vines in the middle of the road.”

“Can’t you undo them?”

“To be honest, I don’t know how. I was hoping, if there’s some extra people at the station, you could send some to burn them down?”

“You said in the middle of the road?”

“Yeah, they’re growing through the road. And a few on the sidewalk. And they’re poison ivy. Sorry.” Sam winced.

“I’ll send a crew down. Main Street?”

“Yeah, right in front of the mayor’s office.”

“Okie dokie. Sounds good. And thank you!”

Sharon hung up before Sam could respond. The woman was nice, and Sam liked talking to her. She almost never got to, but Sharon didn’t know anything about her other than their phone calls and the news, so when they did talk, Sam enjoyed the outside opinion and caring voice.

“And now, all the way home. You got this Sam. You got this.” She continued walking, slowly and shakily. 

It took her another half hour to walk to her house, and then three minutes to muster the strength to fly up to her window and phase through. She wasn’t sure when she had transformed back, but a quick glance in the mirror told her Sam Manson was lying on her bed and not the Wraith. She sighed lightly, and drifted off to sleep.


End file.
